Messina Denaro 'planning to kill' Sicily prosecutor

02/04/2013

Nino Di Matteo's security detachment beefed up

Palermo, April 2 - Fugitive reputed Mafia head
Matteo Messina Denaro is reportedly planning to kill a
prosecutor leading a case against police allegedly involved in
suspected secret 1990s talks with the State to stop a bombing
campaign that claimed the lives of magistrates Giovanni Falcone
and Paolo Borsellino, the Il Fatto Quotidiano daily reported
Tuesday.
Details of Messina Denaro's alleged assassination plan
against Palermo prosecutor Nino Di Matteo were contained in two
anonymous letters sent to Palermo prosecutors a few days ago,
sources said.
The government has ordered Di Matteo's police protection to
be beefed up.
Tuesday's report was the first claim that Messina Denaro,
who took the helm of Cosa Nostra after the arrest of 43-year
fugitive Bernardo Provenzano in 2006, was planning to kill a
prosecutor.
It came as a surprise since the Italian police have recently
been reporting they have severely dented the Mafia chief's power
by arresting associates and seizing assets.
In the latest seizure on January 25, hundreds of thousands
of euros in olive-oil businesses, cars and bank accounts were
confiscated or frozen.
They were in the name of Denaro's sister Anna and her
husband, detained on Mafia charges, 43-year-old Vincenzo
Panicola.
A wave of arrests over recent years have closed the net
around the 50-year-old Agrigento-based boss Denaro, one
of the world's 10 most-wanted men.
In 2011 the hunt kicked into a new gear when police issued
a new identikit picture of him.
A year previously they were able to reconstruct his DNA.
Messina Denaro built up his power base in his native
Trapani, in western Sicily, before beating Palermo chieftains to
become Mob kingpin after 'boss of bosses' Provenzano was caught
in April 2006.
His position at the top of Cosa Nostra was assured with the
November 2007 arrest of Palermo boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo, a
veteran mafia chieftain who had appeared to be vying with the
younger mobster for control of crime syndicate and had the
apparent support of the 'old guard'.
Messina Denaro had been expanding his criminal empire
abroad and police found evidence of trips to Austria, Greece,
Spain and Tunisia.
But police launched a major counter-offensive, implementing
a 'scorched earth' campaign to try and flush Messina Denaro out,
arresting scores of his underlings and seizing million of euros
in assets.
"The circle is closing around the No.1 fugitive,"
then interior minister Roberto Maroni said in 2010.
Palermo Chief Prosecutor Francesco Messineo added at the
time that their aim of the strategy against Messina Denaro was
to "dry up the water he swims in".
Last May then National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Pietro Grasso,
who has since become Senate Speaker after being elected for the
centre-left Democratic Party in February elections, said the
efforts had been so successful that "the Mafia effectively no
longer has a No.1".
Nicknamed 'Diabolik' after a cult Italian comic strip
criminal, Messina Denaro sealed a reputation for brutality by
murdering a rival Trapani boss and strangling his three-months
pregnant girlfriend.
He is reportedly idolised by Cosa Nostra younger troops
because of his ruthlessness and playboy-like charisma.